Amandla Madiba

Been thinking about Mandela a lot the last few days (I think everyone has been thinking a lot about Mandela the last few days).

Photo 1961, Eli Weinberg

One of those people who has done more important work, more capably, more generously, more courageously, persistently, than it's even really possible for me to fathom.  It's scarcely original to say so these days, but I feel tremendously blessed to have been able to share time on the planet with him.

Thank you Tata.

Reveling in Excess

That phrase has a couple different meanings for me this week. On a personal level, I've had a big week for music - made a visit to my local shop in Hoboken and got some fun stuff, including the Feelies new album (their first in just about forever), a really good Buddy Holly tribute album, a Peter Greenaway/Louis Andriessen opera that I haven't had a chance to listen to yet, and Volume 2 from the Baseball Project, just in time for the Sox/Yanks series.

Not only that, but I have been slowly but steadily collecting Bach music in various forms, well, forever, but in an intensified manner since reading Eric Siblin's The Cello Suites, which I recommend fiercely. Highest marks, for real.

And then the thing that made it borderline excessive was when I went back to my place a couple days later to find a package from my friend Scott in Rochester, who had texted me to let me know that he was sending me a thank you for a few CDs I'd sent him a long time ago. This "thank you" turned out to be an insane amount of music. I believe the technical term is "a sh*t ton." An embarrassment of riches (much of which I haven't heard in years, and plenty of which I have never heard at all). Had some fun exploring that, and will enjoy many more hours delving into this music.

So that's the good part, on a personal level.

But you couldn't be blamed for thinking that when I title a post "Reveling in Excess" in August of 2011 that I might be referring to some of the more depressing recent news items. That perhaps I was alluding to something like, oh, I don't know, the nonsense surrounding the recently-put-on-hold-but-hardly-put-to-rest debt ceiling debate; or the hit the U.S. credit rating took the other day; or the anemic nature of the "good news" about unemployment numbers; or the perverse-and-getting-worse disparity between the rich and poor in this country - the stat that seems to come up a lot lately mentions that the richest 400 people in America control more wealth than the poorest half of all Americans, i.e. more than 150 million people. [Read a fact check here by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, scarcely a liberal mouthpiece.] You'd think that the disconnect would get some real attention from people holding elected office in a time of serious financial crisis.

But it doesn't.

And you might have noticed an article this week about a distinct uptick in spending on high-end luxury items. Embarrassment of riches takes on a whole other meaning.

I will leave you for now with an excerpt from Drew Westen's very good opinion piece in today's Times. I encourage you to click on the link and read the whole story, but for this quote, Westen envisions Obama's Inauguration Day, in the wake of brutal political discord, questionable military policy, and especially the devastated economy. Here's what he thinks the American people wanted, or maybe even needed, to hear Obama say on that day:

“I know you’re scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn’t work out. And it didn’t work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods, with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can’t promise that we won’t make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that your government has your back again."

Yeah, something like that would have been nice. It still would.

Ai Weiwei

You've been following the Ai Weiwei story, right? Artist and dissident in China, detained under conditions somewhere between house arrest and imprisonment this spring, recently released (well, sort of; he's still under surveillance and under indictment and can't leave the country without permission) but under a gag order.

The news today is that Ai has accepted a lecturing post in Berlin. He'll go there if he can, but it depends on the Chinese officials permitting him to, unless he goes the full-on refugee/expat route and defects under cover of darkness or something. Which would be pretty out of character, I think.

Meanwhile here are some shots of Ai's beautiful sculpture series of the Chinese Zodiac figures that is by the fountain at the Plaza.

Here's to bold artists everywhere.

Goings On Around the World

As the weather wreaks havoc nationwide, we are seeing some fascinating things globally. Tunisia has experienced a 'Jasmine Revolution' (well, some people are calling it that) resulted in the ousting of Ben-Ali; massive popular movement in Egypt has already produced a commitment from Hosni Mubarak that he will not seek office again (i.e. extend his term beyond thirty years) in September, and may yet result in his resignation; and we'll be hearing much about how social media is playing a part in other contested areas (and those 'contests' will continue to take a wide variety of forms).

There will also be many reports in the coming days about the high-end players behind the scenes who 'made this happen,' who spurred on the events via political channels and manipulation of social media. As all this happens, I think it will be fitting to remember Howard Zinn, who passed almost exactly a year ago, and how he continually reminded us that it is social movement that brings about change. Not that policy-makers, statesmen and important leaders don't play a part, but in the end it's pretty much always, without fail, popular movement that spurs meaningful change in a population.

Life in These United States

Remember Bradley Manning?




No? He's the enlisted serviceman who was at the front of that other Wikileaks scandal, way back in May. Did you know that he's been incarcerated ever since? In fact, he's what the Army calls a "Maximum Custody Detainee," and he's been kept in "intensive solitary confinement" ever since.

This Glenn Greenwald article does a pretty good job of explaining (since, evidently, it needs to be explained) why it might not be a good idea to keep a person alone in a room 23 hours a day without allowing him so much as a pillow or the right to exercise. Especially a person who hasn't been convicted of anything. And is 22 years old.

Now, much of the world considers that level of solitary confinement a form of torture. Greenwald links to an Atul Gawande article you might have read last year that makes that case. (I remember reading it - scared the hell out of me then, and turns my blood cold now.)


To recap what's going on, if you'd like a summary: an enlisted soldier in the U.S. Army is alleged (but not convicted, it bears repeating) to have borne witness to a vast swath of classified documents revealing what appears to be a long long list of illegal and often horrific misdeeds on the part of the country he was serving. He then, according to the allegation, shared that documented evidence with the press in the form of the dreaded Wikileaks. Once the leak was traced back to him, he did not get a public hearing or trial (or even a private military hearing, as far as I know, though presumably one is pending) but rather was put into a brig in Kuwait for two months under the aforementioned brutal conditions (if you're not convinced of their brutality, please do read the Gawande article) before being transferred to a brig in Virginia. Where he remains. Under the same conditions.


Those conditions are perhaps not as extreme as those in the prison in Guantanamo Bay, or unacknowledged sites worldwide (well, unacknowledged except in memos like the ones leaked by Private Manning), although those prisons contain people accused of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism against the United States. That is to say, that's who we think those facilities contain - many of those prisoners haven't even been charged with anything, much less convicted.


Meanwhile, the President has been doing his darndest to extend a tax cut to the richest percent of American wage earners to the tune of 700 billion+ over the next couple years and calling it a victory because unemployment benefits might be extended. And standing idly by while the TSA sexes up security procedures in airports (yup, I kind of agree with the righties on this one - though I won't pretend it makes sense to me how the naked scanner is such a huge violation of civil rights while extraordinary rendition and warrantless, probable-cause-free stop-and-frisk city police procedures [for instance] are a-ok). And the job situation, well, that's not really a lot better. And, oh yeah, the war. And all those things that the leaks revealed presumably go on, business-as-usual.


Well, Mr. President, I'm just gonna come right out and say it: I'm not ok with this.


I know you have to work with Congress, that you don't have power simply to dictate policy (and I wouldn't want you to). I know you are brilliant, way smarter than I am; and charismatic, and persuasive, and an expert on Constitutional Law, and knowledgeable about how things work in domestic and international policy. But... I don't know what you're doing. I keep thinking you must have something up your sleeve, some ingenious plan that will be revealed over time. I keep waiting for you to pull that rabbit out of the hat.


But I can't wait forever.


And I guess I may as well remind you (and my Senators and Congressmen, and especially that ridiculous Governor) that I don't owe you my undying loyalty. Or even my vote. No one does.

politics and anger

It's usually not the most productive choice to give into anger. However, some of the things that come across my line of sight just provoke full-throated rage in me. Don't want to paint myself to be some sort of Billy Jack or anything, but things like what has been going on in American military prisons do make - me - go - berserk: that torture has been redefined as allowable 'cruelty;' that our intelligence agencies divert prisoners via 'extraordinary rendition' to certain foreign prisons which have even fewer restrictions on what types of interrogation are permissible and encouraged.

Guys, I know you know this, but this situation is no kind of joke - it is huge and horrid national shame.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have tremendous respect and gratitude for our soldiers, who do some fantastic work, put themselves in harm's way and have a kind of courage I'll never know. It is not the typical soldier I indict. In fact it's utterly boggling that simple soldiers have taken the heat for what's gone on in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

And you know what's gone on, right?

So, ok, I wrote some stuff that shows a side of me very few ever get to see. And there's a good reason for that. (That whole thing about rage not being productive.)

I've been working to discipline my thoughts lately. Not to suppress or ignore impulses that are uncomfortable, but to get into the habit of turning my mind to things that are useful, positive and somehow geared toward growth. As a character said in a book I read (and deeply appreciated) recently, "you have to choose your thoughts the way you choose the clothes you put on in the morning."

There's something to that.

So, instead of giving in to the vitriol, I refer you to Seymour Hersh's article in this week's New Yorker, which details the events at Abu Ghraib, and more importantly, the systematic hiding and diversion that went on around them; the conscious plotting on the part of people very high in the military establishment and Department of Defense (yes, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) and White House (right up to the top, y'all) to encourage these methods of extracting information that are not only repulsive on a primal level and ethically abhorrent, but notoriously ineffective (which everyone knows - don't they? I mean, do these guys really believe the shit they see on TV?!)

See, it's hard to be measured about this stuff!

The article follows Major General Antonio Taguba, who comes off as a true hero - the kind of guy who inspires people to become career soldiers in the first place - given the job of investigating the abuses at Abu Ghraib, but really expected by the higher-ups to bury them. Nonetheless, he pursued his investigation with great energy, integrity, and what could be described as patriotic fervor. And then he was ostracized roundly for doing so.




And it also shows us the work of this guy:


Major General Geoffrey Miller, a former Gitmo commander who was given the job of making information-gathering more efficient at Abu Ghraib by encouraging the 'loosening up' of prisoners. And then was given the job of 'restoring order' when abuse allegations became known.

Just think it's good to have a face to go with the names of our war criminals.

Please permit me a moment to pause here to acknowledge Genarlow Wilson, the guy given a 10-year sentence for engaging at the age of 17 in consensual oral sex with a 15-year old in Georgia. Even though the Georgia legislature changed the sentencing guidelines of the law after he was sentenced, he wasn't permitted to benefit retroactively. And while a judge did recently order him released, citing the obvious miscarriage of justice (well done!), the Attorney General prosecuting the case is appealing in hopes of returning Wilson to prison for the remainder of his sentence, followed by a lifetime as a registered sex offender.

Guess my point here is that this kid who got a blow job from someone who evidently wanted to give it to him is staring down a LONG prison sentence and ruined life, while the real bad guys have their freedom securely intact.

But rather than give in to the temptation of nastiness, perhaps your time would be better spent signing this petition, brought to us by the folks at MoveOn.

Oh, and if that's not enough, you may as well check out this editorial in Salon.com, which has links to the big Washington Post series on Dick Cheney which has got so much attention in the last few days.

And let's not forget that our Supreme Court has been pretty busy the last couple days too...

Sigh.

It's Giuliani Time

Ah yes, our beloved former mayor was in the news a bit last week, as he spent some time in New Hampshire working on the foundation of his candidacy. Not a bad idea: the early-primary Granite State is an important place to campaign. But then he goes ahead and says things like this:

"If a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001… Never ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for (terrorists) to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!"

Oh Rudy, you're cracking me up! The only thing you left out was a shot about the whiff of pot and patchouli pouring out of their elitist Ivy League Mansions as those dirty peaceniks invite the terrorists in to plot America's downfall.

I think he may as well go straight to Orwell to find the phrase that expresses the Truth that every Republican Presidential Candidate seems to know:

'War is Peace.'

But you gotta hand it to the guy, don't you? Balls like that are hard to come by. It's interesting to me - he clearly was in a provocative mood, and the Dems definitely took the bait. The Democratic Party has been circulating petitions to get him to back off. And Clinton, Edwards and Obama all voiced objections. Mission accomplished for the Rude Man. On Sean Hannity's radio show, he said, "I was trying for a home run but I think I got at least a triple, meaning I have got the three leading Democratic candidates attacking me."

Ooooh - attacking! That's what's going on. Because what Giuliani was doing when he said that stuff about the Democrats sitting back and waiting for the planes to fly into their living rooms, well, that was just being friendly.

And speaking of our 'beloved' former mayor, perhaps this is a good moment to recall that on September 10, 2001, New Yorkers were ready to throw Giulani out on his ass.